Knights
by wingedraksha
Summary: For some, street life means danger. For Kitty Pryde, it means death... until she's taken under the wing of wild, unstable John Allerdyce. Then, after three years, the Xavier Institute offers them a second chance. If, that is, they want it.
1. Chapter 1

The damn bartender didn't know what he was talking about. Causing trouble? Like hell. Like he'd actually have bothered with that little punk if he'd had a choice. Logan snorted, raking a hand through his dark hair as he cracked his neck, enjoying the hot sting of skin knitting together over the cut across one cheek. If anybody else had taken that bottle to the face, they would have been out for hours. Logan, it just pissed him off.

Still, he reflected as he made his way down the stale New York streets, boots thudding against the cracked pavement, maybe throwing the guy through a window hadn't been the best way to handle it. As Storm might say, it lacked a certain diplomacy.

"Whatever," Logan muttered, feeling around in the pocket of his jeans for his keys. The bike was in need of some serious repairs after his last little joyride, so he'd taken one of Scott's cars; it didn't even occur to him to think twice before getting ready to drive. Alcohol and Logan did well together. His metabolism and healing powers made it almost impossible for him to get drunk... unless he wanted to. Now, the memory of Jean's strained face was nice and fuzzy, and his fists felt good. Punching people always left him with a solid satisfaction that even getting tossed out of a bar couldn't dull. Logan thought about whistling, decided against it, and shoved his keys back in the pocket he'd just dug them out of.

"Come on, beautiful, leave the loser and we'll show you a _real_ good time!" The voice, slurred just enough to be threatening, slid past Logan from one of the alleys that branched off from the main street like dozens of dark, spiny veins. Laughter followed, and Logan paused. His nostrils flared, the intoxication fading into a predatory stillness. He smelled... fear.

"Leave us alone! Come on," a girl's voice shrilled, the last words dropping almost a full octave. No less scared, though, and ending in a hiss that said one word: desperate.

"Aw, don't be like that," a third voice said, much lower now. Gritty. Cajoling. About as cajoling as a gun to the face, in fact. Logan's heartrate increased, his eyes narrowing. His fingers tensed, the bones flexing, ready. _Here we go._

............................

"Oh, god," Kitty breathed, her arms faltering. She couldn't pull him anymore, and she wasn't that strong as it was, and goddamnit, he was heavy. Her hands under John's arms, gripping the thin material of his shirt as she dragged him one more step further into the alley, his head drooping onto his chest as he fumbled one hand up and then let it drop--

"Let him go, babe," the one in front said then, head lowering. He had something in his hand now, something short and shiny and--

"Fuck you!" she cried, almost sobbing with it, jerking John one more step and stumbling, tripping, going to her knees. She lost her grip and John slid down, his shoulders landing in her lap, on her thighs, a low groan slipping through his chapped lips. Fear snuck through her, lived through her, fear that made it hard to breathe. Kitty tried to move, tried to phase, tried to do something- anything!- useful, but her throat was closed off and they were getting closer and John wasn't opening his eyes, wasn't getting up, and she was so tired now, so tired.

"Not so big and strong now, are you?" one of the men (god, men? Boys, really) asked darkly, spitting towards John's crumpled legs. "Not gonna set us on fire _now_, you fucking freak?"

"Please, just go," Kitty whispered, barely able to get the words out. John's head lolled against her stomach, his hair plastered to his cheeks. She wrapped her thin arms around his neck, hands wringing into his chest, aware of the shallowness of his breaths and the cold sweat that dotted his forehead.

"Not without a little something from you, princess," the leader said, voice like poison honey. The knife in his hand glinted, and she heard the sounds of traffic from the street beyond, and felt like dying. Dying like- like John was dying. _Oh, god, no_, her brain insisted, the yammering terror giving way to a lower dread.

"Stay back!" Useless. It was all useless. They were going to take her and John was going to die and then they'd kill her, cut her throat like a pig, and even if they didn't there was no way she could help her boy, no way she could ever save him like he'd saved her.

"Who's gonna make us?" the boy with the knife asked smugly, advancing another step. Only a few feet away, now. "You got no one, mutie."

"Neither do you," someone said behind him, the gruff snarl so low that Kitty almost didn't even register the words. "Three guesses as to who's gonna hurt more." And then there was something moving, something moving faster than Kitty could follow, the darkness mixing into the noise of the city and the startled shouts of the men who'd stalked her into this alley. Someone screamed, there was a horrible wet tearing sound, the salty stench of blood. Too much blood. Kitty closed her eyes, lowered her head to press her forehead against John's, and bit her lip hard enough to burn.

It was over in less than a minute. It was over in a lifetime. The fear was bigger now, wilder, more viscous; she could feel it in every part of her and people kept _screaming_, and there were those awful ripping sounds and something like tumbling wet steam...

When the hand fell on her shoulder, Kitty did the only thing she could think of. She bit it. A man yelped, surprised, and then shocked her even more by doing the last thing she'd expected: he laughed.

"It's okay, kid," came that rough voice. The anger, though, was gone. Slowly, carefully, Kitty looked up.

A man stood over them, his gray shirt spattered with blood. His hair, thick and dark and oddly brushed back, bared his whole, rugged face. He wasn't smiling... but his eyes, very hard and very old, were gentle.

"What... did you do?" she asked, her own voice soft and crumpled. She didn't look behind him. She didn't want to look.

"I took care of it." He pointed his chin at John, eyes not leaving Kitty's face. "Looks like your pal there is in a bad way." Her first instinct was to draw John closer and curl around him, to protect him, to say _He's fine!_ until this stranger left them alone... but the truth of the broken way John's chest rose and fell was stronger than that instinct.

"He's sick," she said finally, cursing herself for the stupid obviousness of those words. "I don't... I don't know what." The stranger hesitated, licking his lips as his brows lowered thoughtfully. Then, one hand scratching at his stubbly chin, he hunkered down to their level.

"I can help you," he said simply, keeping her gaze, eyes steady and as honest as she'd seen in a long while. _We're okay. I don't need your help. Leave us alone._ The automatic answers rushed around inside her head like water, the answers drilled into her since the day John found her... but when she opened her mouth, none of them came out. After a few long beats of her silence, the man slid one arm beneath John's shoulders and the other beneath his knees, lifting him in one smooth motion. "Let's go," he said to Kitty as she scrambled to her feet. John's arm dangled down by the stranger's knees, and, her heart tripping in her chest, Kitty grabbed his hand.

"Okay."


	2. Chapter 2

"So you've been on your own since you were fifteen?"

"Not on my own," Kitty objected, knowing she sounded sullen and unable to help it. They wouldn't let her see John. She'd been at this strange, ornate place for over an hour and they wouldn't let her see John.

"Right, your young friend. Do you know how long he's been living on the streets?" It was a woman asking the questions, a woman with white hair and a face so beautiful it made Kitty feel inadequate just looking at it. She was quiet, though, and polite, with the kind of subdued strength that Kitty wanted to find in herself. Across the desk, an even quieter man sat in some kind of high-tech wheelchair, watching her with warm, steady eyes. The man who'd brought them here, a man who'd finally introduced himself as Logan, leaned awkwardly against the wall behind her.

"I don't know," Kitty said at last, looking down at her hands. "He... knew his way around." She wasn't giving anything away, and it wasn't like there was anything _to_ give away, but even saying this much felt like a betrayal. John hated strangers. Didn't trust them. He wouldn't want her to talk about him when he was lying unconscious on some unfamiliar bed. And yet... these people, this Ororo Munroe and Charles Xavier and her no-last-name rescuer... they had taken John and her in, no questions about police or child services at all. They hadn't even started asking about what had brought her here until she'd eaten a warm meal and had had a chance to shower and change her clothes.

And there were other kids here, too. That was the other thing, the strangest thing. There were whole packs of them. The white-haired lady had ushered her through them with nothing more than a soft wave of the hand, but she'd seen them and they'd seen her. She'd seen them... doing things. Impossible things. _Mutant_ things. So if there were others like her here, surely it couldn't be too dangerous?

"He helped me," she said, needing to fill the patient silence. "He looked after me. We look after each other," Kitty added then, glancing up, first at Ororo, then at the man in the wheelchair. Professor Xavier, he'd called himself.

"And you've been looking after each other for three years," the Professor said softly, steepling his fingers in front of him. "You must know how impressive that is, Kitty. Especially considering your gifts."

"Gift," she repeated bitterly, gaze falling again. "If I didn't have this _gift_, I would have a home." The words caught in her chest, falling off her tongue like barbs. Then, something warm, gentle, brushed against her wrist. She looked up, and saw Ororo's hand resting lightly on her arm.

"You have a home," the woman told her evenly, brown eyes large. "If you want it." Kitty licked her lips, her mind exhausting itself, conflicted. She meant... she meant stay, stay here with them and the other mutant children, have a proper bed and regular meals and no danger of being hunted into alleyways at night... But the last time Kitty had trusted adults, it had ended in her running away from the family that had raised her, loved her-- until, that was, she developed her precious _gift_. And then there was John. He wouldn't want to stay. Of course he wouldn't. He was always talking about the horrors of conformity and the dangers of giving anyone power over you, wasn't he? Or... or would he look at the offer as a chance, a real chance, something they could use to find a better life?

She had to talk to him. She had to _see_ him.

"I want to see John," Kitty said, crossing her arms and tucking her feet beneath her chair. Beside her, Ororo glanced at the Professor with a hint of worry that Kitty's sharp eyes failed to miss. "What's wrong? He's okay, right? Logan said he'd be okay. Logan said you'd help him!"

"We are helping him, Kitty," Xavier said, leaning forwards. "And I have every faith that he will be just fine. And," he continued, pointedly, "Logan would be happy to escort you to the infirmary. Wouldn't you, Logan?"

"Sure," the tall man grunted, and Kitty _felt_ him straighten away from the wall more than heard it. He had a presence, Logan did... but after what he'd done for them, Kitty had a hard time being truly intimidated by it. Still, when he gestured for her to precede him out of the office, she turned her head enough to see his feet as he followed, making sure of his position.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, Logan guiding her along varnished wooden halls and through shady stairways, past a small cluster of kids pouring over what looked like textbooks, and towards a long, narrow room on the first floor of the mansion. As they approached it, he cleared his throat.

"Sorry about the, y'know, kids all over the place. Curfew's not for another half-hour."

"It's okay," she said, wondering if he thought she'd be afraid of the others. Not true. As long as they kept their distance, and as long as John really was going to be all right, Kitty was just golden.

"It's a good place," Logan added, reaching for a metallic pad beside the door they'd stopped in front of. "Good people." With that, he keyed something into the pad and waited as the door hummed open.

John was lying on one of several hospital-issue cots, his face pale, eyes closed, hair slicked back and still damp. Someone had washed it, Kitty realized, and felt a small ache somewhere beneath her ribs. She was beside the bed before she'd registered her own movement, Logan hanging back by the door. They were alone in the long room, and so Kitty didn't stop her knees from bending to leave her kneeling on the floor beside John's bed, her shoulders bowing with a sigh as she found his wrist with her small hand. His pulse was stronger than it had been, less thready. His color, too, looked better. Less gray, anyway.

And his breathing, Kitty saw with a sharp wash of relief, was steady.

"He had a fever of 106 degrees," a man said over her shoulder. Kitty almost jumped out of her own skin, automatically phasing a few inches into the floor before she regained control and settled herself. Oh, and why can't I phase when I actually need to? She twisted to look behind her, hand sliding away from John's arm. A man... a beast... a creature stood there, dressed in a suit and a white coat, blue face smiling kindly down at them. "I've managed to get that down with some heavy antibiotics, but he'll be asleep for a while. It's a miracle he was even standing before he came to me."

"He wasn't," Kitty said distractedly, eyes on the blue man. He inclined his head at her.

"My name is Hank McCoy, child. And you must be Kitty Pryde."

"That's right," she confirmed, tearing her gaze away from McCoy and back to John. "So he'll be all right?"

"Oh, yes. He's responded quite well to the medicine I gave him when he arrived. He'll be awake and lucid tomorrow, I should think." Dizzy with relief, Kitty almost laughed at that. There were many things one could call Johnny Allerdyce, but 'lucid' had never really been one of them. Not that he was crazy; of course he wasn't crazy... he just... he was _different_.

_It was early, way too early to be awake and moving around, but Kitty forced her eyes to stay open and tried to focus every sleepy piece of her on the animation in John's face. No, not John; right now, he was Pyro. Pyro crouching in front of her, hands waving, bits of flame dancing between his fingers like little glints of colored paper, excitement lighting those bright hazel eyes._

"O! for a muse of fire_, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention!" he cried, one hand darting out to twirl a long strand of her hair before he let it go and spun to stand. Kitty, bleary and aching, pushed herself to her feet. They were in an empty box apartment, squatting, a place where they'd spent the past two days and would probably have to leave soon. It was just dawn, and the light that came through the dusty, broken window was like the faintest breath of summer against her skin._

"What are you doing, Johnny?" she asked him, trying to calm things down even as something in her delighted in his energy. He whirled to face her, shaggy dark hair falling across his forehead, the too-long tips spiking down over his eyes to trace the stubble on his cheeks and jaw.

"A kingdom for a stage, Kit-kat, a stage! And we'd need the princes, for the acting." She yawned, lifted a hand to her mouth; he caught it and spun her into a waltz, the fire sweeping from his fingers to dart around the ceiling, little burning birds. Kitty laughed despite herself, loving him then, the brother she'd never had, the savior she'd never asked for, this wild unpredictable boy who could tug her into a dance one second and, with deadly seriousness, warn off some rival piece of streetscum in the next.

"I don't know what that means," she insisted, though it sounded vaguely familiar. Shakespeare, no doubt. He did love old Bill. John scoffed, stopping their fey waltz and taking her by the shoulders.

"In order to have a kingdom, there must be a prince," he explained carefully, eyes on hers. "I want to give you a kingdom, Kitten." He said this last laughingly, eyes bright again, and Kitty knew he was playing with her.

"You're the prince," she said, slapping him lightly in the side of the head. "Stop teasing me." He dropped his hands, backing away, mock-affronted. The craziness fell away like a veil, the fire dropping out behind his back.

"I'm the prince, eh? What does that make you?"

"Tired, that's what," and she dropped down to the blanket on the floor again, curling herself up into a ball. With a sigh, John collapsed down behind her, wrapping himself around her body like a big cat. It was how they'd always slept, from the very first night. Not about sex, not even about warmth... about safety. About the way they fit together, just the two of them, John-and-Kitty, two against the world. 

The memory faded slowly, Kitty keeping her head down, wanting it to linger. She was aware of a stillness in the infirmary, and knew that, however long she'd been lost in thought, the others had left her. When she finally did open her eyes, the first thing she saw was John's sleeping face.

Slowly, Kitty got to her feet. Again, the truth of her utter exhaustion hit her. This time, though, it hit her like a bulldozer. Carefully, not bothering to find the light switch, Kitty climbed onto the bed beside John. The blankets were pulled high around his shoulders, so she didn't try to squirm under them. Instead, turning on her side and wrapping one arm around John's waist, Kitty tucked her head against his shoulder and shut her eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

The night Kitty met John for the first time wasn't a pleasant one. It was cold, colder than she'd expected, the air thick with exhaust and oil slicks and harsh breath. It was four days after she ran, and Kitty was as near to starving as she'd ever been. Her legs, gently curved at fifteen, trembled as she leaned against a brick wall and kept her arms close against her relatively flat chest. She had the duffel bag slung over her shoulder, her father's duffel bag, the one she'd stolen from the hall closet before using the last of her birthday money to buy a train ticket to New York City. Inside it were a few other changes of clothes, her passport, and nothing else. No more money. No cell phone. No food.

It was late now, and she was getting ready to try to find a stoop that looked safe enough to curl up in. She knew there were homeless shelters in the city, but the lines filled up hours ago and she was still lost somewhere in Manhattan by seven o'clock. The past three nights she'd spent in parks, curled up into the tiniest ball she could manage beneath a bench or deep in the foliage; anywhere where she wasn't immediately visible. Now, though, it was too late to wander around New York alone trying to find one of the few little parks or even Central Park itself, and Kitty knew she'd be lucky to find even a doorstop rather than just a street corner. The corner of her mouth twisting bitterly, Kitty remembered the last time she'd been in a big city. With her family, that time, walking to a restaurant and passing the roughened old homeless men that huddled on the sides of the streets with blankets and beards and wounded eyes.

Now, the whines of brakes and the steady hum of conversation meshing together in the false lights of the city streets, Kitty straightened away from the wall and started making her way towards a large department store a few blocks down. She had seen a woman sleeping there earlier. Not for the first time, or for the last, some small screaming part of her begged to know what exactly she thought she was doing, why the hell she was still out here instead of in a train station waiting for her mother to come and get her. _Because_, Kitty told herself, _that wouldn't happen. I would call, and she would say I'm a worthless freak who doesn't deserve to be a member of this family, and where would I be? Right where I started, with an extra dose of self-hatred. _So she ducked her head against the whistle of a young man idling at the curb in a busted car, and kept walking.

"Hey, girl!" he called after her, craning his neck around to peer through his rolled-down window as she passed. "I'm talking to you!" In another life, Kitty might have sassed back, might have snapped some snide little retort and hurried up her pace. As it was, she just folded her arms tighter and kept going, refusing to lift her gaze from the sidewalk just ahead of her sneakers. It occurred to her that there was no one else on the street, that there were cars passing but that they were dark, opaque, like loud and animal monsters. She was not a part of their world. Kitty swallowed, walked faster, not daring to run. Running would prove that she had a reason to fear.

Which she didn't, Kitty reminded herself as the sound of a car door slamming shut broke through the traffic buzz. If he came after her, which she was absolutely sure he was not doing, she could just phase away. He wouldn't be able to touch her. And then, when he found out she was a mutant, he'd run away screaming. Right? Wasn't that what people _did_? And then Kitty made the mistake of looking over her shoulder, and saw that he was coming after her, oh, yes, he was. Walking with his hands in his pockets, chin down, eyes glinting at her through the poison streetlamp glow. He had a black sweatshirt, the hood drawn up, but she could make out those phantom eyes.

The department store, which was not still open but which did have a lit awning, was still two blocks away. And the sounds of footsteps behind her were picking up speed.

Kitty thought about running, considered how fast she could make it to the store. Pretty fast._ But even if I do make it, what's to stop him from just dragging me-_ and then her mind flipped off, simply shutting down in a millisecond of utter shock as a hand closed around her upper arm.

"Not polite to just run off when someone's talking to you," the young man said, anger mixing with satisfaction in his tone. "I just wanna talk." Kitty, not daring to use her powers yet, wrenched her arm out of his grasp and stumbled back a step with the force of her pull.

"Well, I don't want to talk to you," she snapped, trying to cover fear with bravado. He was much bigger than she was, much taller, and at that moment Kitty felt as alone as the first minute she'd arrived in New York.

"That's not very nice," he said, and reached for her again. Kitty jumped back, spinning around and breaking into a run.

She got about five feet before his arm whipped around her waist, catching her off-balance and yanking her sideways into a short, dead-end alley. Kitty screamed, her feet tripping over themselves, his grip on her waist tight enough to hurt. Automatically she twisted her torso and scratched at his face, half-pushing herself away, half-digging into the skin of his cheeks and jaw. He snarled, batting her hands away and catching her wrists in his free fist, ignoring her attempts to knee him in the groin as he shoved her roughly up against the wall behind her. Kitty's skull connected with the brick with a hard crack, and her teeth snapped shut on her tongue. The man pressed into her, slamming her hands up above her head and getting one forearm across her wrists, barring them there even as she struggled to pull them away. This only caused the brick to scrape against the skin of the backs of her hands, leaving them stinging.

"Get off me!" she gasped, tasting blood on her lips, nausea threatening to wrench her stomach in two.

"Shut up, bitch," he grunted, free hand working at the zipper of her jeans. Kitty tried to catch her breath, closing her eyes against the onslaught, and concentrated. _Come on, come on, phase, just do it, come on!_ But the power was new, having just manifested itself the week before she'd run, and Kitty's body stayed solid. Tears squeezed out beneath her eyelids as one rough hand shoved its way up beneath her shirt, and Kitty felt her feet sink into the wall behind her as she struggled. The rest of her, however, refused to go intangible. Slowly, it spread to her calves, and Kitty let out a strangled, desperate sob as her head began to throb with the strain of forcing something she wasn't yet sure how to control. He hadn't even noticed, and she felt his hand close around one small breast.

Then, with no warning whatsoever, the hand was jerked away with enough force to rip her button-up shirt from the bottom up. The arm pinning her hands above her head vanished as the man whirled around, one raised elbow flying back to smack Kitty in the jaw. She went down sideways, sinking into the ground up to her knees before she pulled herself up and solidified in a heap against the wall, one hand tight at the side of her face as if that would make the pain dissipate.

The man was shouting something, and then Kitty realized two things at once.

One, the air was suddenly strong with the stench of burned hair.

Two, there was someone else in their lonely little alley.

A boy stood before them, facing down her would-be rapist with both feet braced, thin shoulders squared, wide predatory eyes flickering in the light of…

"Oh, my god," Kitty murmured, her eyes locked on the boy's hands. He was holding a lighter in one, and in the other… he was holding a writhing, twisting ball of flames.

"Get the fuck out of here, freak," her attacker growled, but there was a tell-tale tremble to it, a slight shaking of the hands clenched at his sides. He was afraid, Kitty realized, and felt a sudden burn of triumph. She looked back at the boy, willing him to just do it. Willing him to throw the fireball. He just smiled, something feral in that crooked twist of mouth.

"I'm not going anywhere," he said, low voice much steadier than she'd expected. "But you are. Right now."

"I won't-"

"Yes," the mutant corrected calmly, and a spurt of fire darted out to singe the man's cheek. With a surprised howl, he stumbled backwards, almost stepping on Kitty. "You will." Fury and terror combining into an ugly grimace, the man turned and ran. He didn't even bother to look back.

When he rounded the corner of the alley and disappeared, Kitty slowly pushed herself to her feet. Now that the confrontation was over, a new fear filled her. What if this mutant had scared away the human just so he could—

But then she looked into his face, meeting a surprisingly warm hazel gaze as the flames in his palm vanished soundlessly. And, without even a second thought, she trusted him.

"I'm Kitty," she said, holding out a hand. After a momentary hesitation, her savior took it. His fingers were warm against her own, so very warm.

"I'm John." Not letting go of her hand, he slipped the lighter back into the pocket of his jeans and turned his head to glance at the mouth of the alley. "Come on," John told her, as if they'd known each other forever. "Let's go."

And they did.

* * *

When John opened his eyes for what felt like the first time in years, the lids so heavy it was exhausting just lifting them, he had a mild, controlled panic attack. He was in a strange, white room, lying on an actual bed, and—and there was a familiar weight across his chest, a soft warmth against the side of his neck, where Kitty's arm and cheek had moved in sleep. John closed his eyes and concentrated on her, the nearness of her, the light and comforting grip her fingers had on the collar of his shirt. She was there, and she wasn't going anywhere.

This time, when John opened his eyes again, his heartbeat stayed steady and he managed to really look around the room. Not a hospital, he decided, taking in the long row of cots that stretched out to his left. Where, then? He'd lost consciousness, obviously, but even before that things were woozy. He couldn't remember coming here, and he couldn't remember Kitty saying anything about a place to stay. All he could, in fact, remember, was the pinch of her hands beneath his arms as she… dragged him? Confused and fuzzy-headed, John carefully dislodged Kitty's hand and sat up. It wasn't until the sheet and blanket slid down his chest to pool at his waist that John realized he wasn't wearing a shirt.

"What?" he said, or tried to say, but his tongue didn't seem to be working properly. His head ached, too, a steady throbbing pain that hadn't registered until this moment. John lifted one hand and pressed it against his temple, then had a disorienting flash of fear and smacked the hand down against his pocket. He was still wearing his jeans, thank god, and through the denim he could feel the familiar outline of his lighter. Relief swept through him, and John turned to look down at the girl curled on her side against his waist.

Kitty seemed fine. Her hair was clean, mussed with sleep but no longer matted and lank. She was wearing strange, too-large sweatpants and a t-shirt that, while roomy, had ridden up sometime during the night to bare several inches of pale hip and belly. Eyes on the smooth curve of her waist, John felt his breath catch. Then, _no, no, don't think of her like that, she doesn't think of you like that, and why should she? You're _family_, not… not…_ Thankfully, that particular line of thought was cut off by the sound of Kitty's quiet yawn and the sleepy blinking of her dark eyes.

It took her only the space between winks to sit up, hands going to his face, palms cupping his cheeks as she looked at him.

"Oh, you're all right," she whispered, eyes darting from his hair to his nose to his chin to his eyelashes, as if counting to make sure everything was still there. "They said you would be, but I didn't quite believe them, and now it doesn't matter because you're okay." He reached up and took her wrists in his hands, gently pulling her own hands away from his face. His skin burned where she'd touched it, his fingers tingling.

"Where are we?" he asked, and when the words came out they were hoarse and strained. She saw the mistrust in his expression and shook her head emphatically.

"We're in a good place, I think," Kitty told him. "There was some trouble, and a man helped us. He knew you were sick, and he said there was somewhere we could go, and I didn't know what else to do so I said yes. And now we're here." He waited. "It's a school, John," she clarified, scooting forwards on the mattress, drawing her legs up against her chest. "A school for people like us."

"What do you mean, a school?" Wariness back, John sat up further and did his best to ignore the humming behind his eyeballs. "Did they ask you anything? Make you sign anything? Who brought us here? Where is it?"

"We are in upstate New York," a new voice said from the doorway beyond the foot of the bed. John's eyes snapped away from Kitty to take in the man standing—no, sitting, before them. Middle-aged, bald, wheelchair. He noted these factors clinically, body automatically tensing as he prepared to leap from the bed if necessary. "You are at the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, and you are very welcome. Although you are, of course, free to go whenever you wish." The man smiled at them, something knowing in the lines of his face. "My name is Professor Charles Xavier, and I am the Headmaster here. I'm very glad you're back among the living, Mr. Allerdyce. I'm sure Logan will be as well."

"Logan?"

"He's the one who… who brought us in," Kitty said after a moment, and John shot a suspicious glance her way. She'd said this man, this Logan, had helped them. Helped them with what, exactly? He didn't like the thought of someone else protecting his Kitty.

"What did you do to me?" he asked, changing the subject. "Where's my shirt?" Kitty, apparently, had failed to actually notice that particular detail, and when he said it her eyes dropped to his chest and then darted quickly away. She'd seen him shirtless before, of course, but always briefly and never in such close proximity. John had made very sure of that, ever since… things changed for him. Much as he hated to admit it, sleeping next to her was hard enough. Being _awake_ and that close to her, with fewer than usual clothes on? It was asking for disaster. Let no one say Pyro was scared of a little mayhem, but trouble with Kitty was one thing he'd do almost anything to avoid.

Xavier chuckled, and inclined his chin ever so slightly.

"I, personally, did nothing. A good friend of mine, Henry McCoy, gave you a series of heavy antibiotics to bring your fever down and stabilize your breathing. You were suffering from bacterial pneumonia, John, and you had us worried for a while. Fortunately, you responded well to the medication. In a few days, you should be right as rain. As for your shirt, I believe it's been incinerated." John frowned, looking down at himself.

"It wasn't toxic," he said stubbornly, annoyed at himself for wanting to find a reason to fight this man. It was against his nature to just go along, to accept help at all, and even now he had the feeling that if Kitty hadn't been involved, he may have just forced his way out of… this 'School for Gifted Youngsters'. And what kind of a name was that, anyway?

"Believe me, my good sir, it was. We would have disposed of the pants as well, but Dr. McCoy felt that removing them would cause unnecessary disruption. Now that you're awake, however, a change of clothes will be made available. As well as a real shower." Now, John knew he'd been insulted. Or, he knew he felt like he'd been insulted. And yet… And yet the way the Professor had said what he'd said gave no offense, none whatsoever. Just a statement of fact.

"They've invited us to stay," Kitty murmured to him then, in the silence that followed the Professor's words. "For good, I mean. No money or anything." John fought the instinct to put an arm around her and draw her closer to him, forcing his brain to understand the fact that she was in no immediate danger, and that the threat he perceived wasn't actually physical at all. Still, the suggestion tripped every warning bell John had. Keeping his eyes on Xavier, he considered for a moment. Then,

"Why?"

"Because that is why we exist," the man replied simply. "The world is not an easy place for those of us who are a little different, a little special. My people and I are here to make life a little more stable, a little less frightening. If you should choose to stay, you will have a home. Friends, or at the very least other children like yourself. Food. Education. People to turn to, to trust, who will stand by you through everything. And, if that is the path you wish to follow, training."

"Training?" This time, it was Kitty who asked. John thought of the trouble she had phasing under pressure, and wondered if the Professor was serious. The man nodded.

"Mental as well as physical. We can help you better control your powers, and we can prepare you to use them under whichever circumstances present themselves." He smiled again, looking from Kitty to John and back again. "It's difficult to trust people, especially adults. I know. Understand that we are not looking for an immediate answer, and even if you do decide to stay, you may leave at any time. John, Dr. McCoy will be in shortly. He'll help you with clothing and that shower. Kitty, lunch is being served on the grounds, if you'd like." There was a pause.

"I'll stay with John for a while. Then, maybe." The Professor nodded.

"Certainly. Just ask Hank when you're ready to go up, and he'll call you an escort. It's easy to get lost around here until you've gotten to know the building," he added in a friendly tone, and then, with a mechanical whirr, was gone.


	4. Chapter 4

It wasn't like the room went silent when Kitty entered. Only a few people even bothered to look up at the soft creak of the door.

It was just…

There were so _many_ of them. And so few places _without_ them. She stood framed in the doorway, blinking, taking in the crowd of mutant teenagers that flooded the wide cafeteria-type room in scattered collections and sprawls. They sat on the floor, on tables, even on actual chairs, and there was noise. A lot of noise. Everyone talking to each other, laughter, a spatter of some vaguely familiar showtune that was met with a slap and a shout. And despite what she'd thought the night before, Kitty had to admit it.

She was intimidated.

Turning, Kitty glanced over her shoulder and saw that the young man who'd shown her here had vanished, leaving her with no real choice. After all, now that she was gone, John was probably in the shower or being checked up by the blue doctor. She couldn't go back and hide in the medical bay with him anymore.

Slowly, Kitty walked into the room. She drew herself up, trying to remember the confidence that John had taught her to exude on the streets. If they thought you weren't afraid of them, people were less likely to decide to play with that fear. Here, though, it wasn't quite as easy. These people weren't the ones she was really afraid of, weren't the ones she actually had to ward off. These people… were the ones she was supposed to befriend, to adjust to. To fit in with.

Heading for the buffet table along one wall, Kitty head her own stomach growl and felt herself flush. It had been a long, long time since she'd seen so much food readily available, and even though she wasn't particularly starving, just the sight was enough to instinctively activate her hunger pangs.

Just as she reached for one of the black plastic trays stacked in front of the buffet, a hand came down on her right shoulder. Kitty jerked away, spinning on her heel, the hand on the tray flying up to hold the tray between her and whoever had touched her like a shield. The boy backed away fast, holding both hands up where she could see them, wide blue eyes surprised, but not really alarmed.

"It's okay," he said, giving her a slight smile. "We come in peace."

"Sorry," Kitty said, lowering the tray. "My leader isn't here." There was a pause, and then the boy's smile broke into a grin. He lifted one hand and ran it through his short, light hair.

"Well, that's all right," he told her amiably. "I'll meet you instead." He held out a palm. "Bobby Drake." Kitty hesitated, then took his hand and shook it quickly.

"Kitty Pryde. I'm new."

"I gathered," Bobby said, one corner of his mouth remaining crooked up in a boyishly charming grin. "Just get here this morning?" Kitty half-turned away from him, placing her tray on the metal sliding rack that ran in front of the food and side-stepping along the buffet.

"Last night," she admitted, helping herself to a pile of scrambled eggs and two legs of fried chicken. "I don't know if I'm staying yet, though." She wasn't sure why she was still talking, but he hadn't wandered off in boredom yet, so there was that. Kitty risked a skewed glance to her right, took in the lean build and the handsome, clean-shaven face. About their age, she and John. Taller than Pyro, though, Kitty reflected as she scooped up some jello, but not as… not as sharp, somehow. Not as quick in the features, as hard around the eyes.

"Where're you from?" Bobby asked, staying with her, keeping a respectful distance. She wanted to write him off as intrusive, but Kitty couldn't help it. She thought… well, damn it, she thought he was kind of nice. _And kind of cute_, something inside her murmured, amused. Kitty swallowed.

"Around," she said evasively, taking her stocked tray and grabbing silverware from the bin at the end of the table. Done, Kitty looked around, scanning the room for a place to sit. Bobby waited, then seemed to notice what she was doing. He gave a little jump, stepping in front of her.

"Hey, you can sit with us. Over here," he went on, gesturing widely with an arm for her to go ahead of him. Cautiously, Kitty walked over to where a group of teenagers around her age were slouching around a large round table. A girl with weird, two-toned hair and shoulder-length gloves was perched on the rim of the table, locked into what looked like a fairly intense thumb war with a petite Asian seated at her side. She looked up when Bobby and Kitty approached, her face breaking into a smile. The expression took what had been nice enough features, and turned them lovely.

"Bobby!" the girl said, effortlessly winning the thumb war and jumping off the table to give Kitty's new friend a brief hug before turning to Kitty herself. "Who'd you find?"

"Hi," Kitty said before Bobby could introduce her. "I'm Kitty Pryde." She stuck out a hand. The girl ducked her chin, almost shyly, then took it.

"Well, Kitty Pryde, I'm Rogue. Welcome to the Institute." She had an accent, softly Southern.

"So, New Girl," came a new voice from the table behind Rogue, "what's your thing?"

"What?" Kitty peered around Rogue, who stepped aside and turned. A black boy with shockingly peroxided hair leaned back in his chair, eyes on Kitty.

"Your thing. Your power." Kitty blinked, unused to such bluntness. Especially about this.

"I… Um, I phase."

"You…?" Bobby looked confused. Kitty sighed.

"I can make myself untouchable," she tried, trying to avoid saying that she turned herself into a ghost. Oddly, at those words, Rogue gave a sudden, humorless snort. Kitty swallowed again. "I mean, I can go intangible. You know, walk through walls."

"Oh," the black boy said, comprehension hitting. "Like a ghost." And there it was.

"Yeah."

"Well, that's cool," Rogue said, obviously attempting to break the sudden awkward tension as well as to erase her own loss of control. "Too bad you didn't go to my high school; you could have helped me out on some of those end-of-year exams." Kitty laughed, though the joke hadn't been that funny. She just wanted them to stop looking at her. She wanted John. John would know how to handle this. He didn't really like people, and he didn't really trust them, but he could make them do what he wanted. They wouldn't stare at _him_ if he didn't want them to, that was for damn sure. Or, at least, not openly.

"Here," Bobby said, sensing her discomfort. "Have a seat. Yo, Spyke, what was that Physics homework?" Kitty sat down between Rogue and the Asian girl, who introduced herself as Jubilee, as the gloved girl whacked Bobby in the side of the head.

"That's due next period," she said, exasperated. Bobby shrugged, grinning at her.

"Which, my gorgeous Southern belle, is why I'm doing it now!"

Kitty ducked her head and concentrated on eating her lunch, content and relieved to just listen.

.....................

Showers were probably the best thing Man ever invented. That was John's opinion on the matter, anyway. Well, showers did fall behind lighter fluid, obviously, but by a very small margin.

He was still weak, mentally and physically exhausted, and his whole body ached… but he was clean, wet and clean, and it was _wonderful_. Dressed in borrowed jeans and someone's gray military-style long-sleeved T-shirt, John toweled his hair as vigorously as he could just to feel the silky way it followed the terrycloth. It had been ages since he'd had a real shower, one with shampoo and conditioner and everything. Usually it was just a public gym and hand soap.

Now, dropping the towel to the floor at his feet and swiping a hand across the fogged mirror, John stared at his own reflection. He looked… practically civilized. Unrecognizable. His hair, now that he was done rubbing it all over the place, was slicked loosely back along his skull. His face, bare and scrubbed clean, was somber and catlike as ever, the unreadable amber eyes and solemn, sensual mouth just the same… but if you didn't know to look for the wild edges of his pupils or the feral curl of his lip, he'd look like any other nineteen-year-old kid after a long night's sleep and a nice, warm shower.

Weird.

Done, John slung his used towel over one shoulder and strolled out of the bathroom. As it was in one corner of the infirmary, he didn't have to go far before he reached the bed where he'd spent the night (and a significant part of the day). Once there, John deposited his towel on the foot of the bed. As it hit the mattress, a soft sound alerted him to a presence behind him in the infirmary door.

John whipped around, almost losing his balance, legs nearly giving out. Thankfully, he managed to keep his feet and to avoid looking too obviously impaired.

A man was standing in the doorway, one hand resting casually on the inner frame, the other in the pocket of his jeans. He looked at John with a grim, steady gaze, rough face expressionless but for the faintest hint of a tilt to the mouth.

After a long moment, one in which John refused to either sit down, speak or look away, the man let out a huff of air that John recognized instantly as a laugh.

"Okay, kid," the man said easily, not dropping his gaze but somehow sending out a signal that their little pissing contest was over. With that signal, however, it was pretty clear who had won. John's eyes narrowed. "You look better."

"Yeah?" The man smirked, unimpressed.

"Well, considering the last time I saw you, you were an unconscious heap I had to haul around like a bag of bricks… yeah." Embarrassment, anger and recognition all flashed through John at once. He went with recognition, as he worried that both the other two would lead to him bleeding on the floor. There was something in the man's eyes, something animal… and in John's weakened state, he wasn't stupid enough to take anyone on if he could help it.

"You're Logan," he said instead, flat.

"Your girl tell you about me?"

"She said you helped her. Us," John corrected, his desire to avoid being indebted to the man giving in to his fear of showing any kind of separation between himself and Kitty. Logan stepped into the room fully, his free hand dropping into the coinciding pocket. He kept his eyes on John's.

"Roughed up some punks, is all." Something tightened in John's jaw, and he felt the muscle twitch. He'd been out cold, and some streetscum had tried to mess with Kitty?

"They dead?" he asked shortly, hand wanting to slide down for his lighter. Just to feel it. Just to imagine. Logan shook his head.

"Nah. Murder's frowned on here. But they won't be trying anything else for a long time, kid. Trust me on that." There was that smirk again, knowing and irreverent. "Gonna say thanks?" John scoffed.

"I'm not the one who should thank you," he said. "They are." Logan's smirk didn't fade, but his eyes sharpened on John's face.

"And why's that?" John didn't blink.

"Because if it were me, I'd have killed them," he said simply. "And they know it." There was a long silence. Logan studied John with a hunter's intensity, the wolf to John's panther. Then, lifting his chin, the man nodded.

"I'll know why I'm getting cards, then," he said lightly. Then he turned, and walked casually out.


	5. Chapter 5

John moved slowly, close to the wall. He didn't like being inside this huge, sprawling place; he felt trapped, shut in. The air was cool, not stale, and almost breezy. Like he was walking through a tunnel of vents. Hell, he probably was.

It was three days since his arrival at the Xavier Institute, three days of resting with brief bouts of moving around the infirmary. Kitty had come to sit with him each of those days, for hours on end, but every evening she'd gone to wherever it was that she went and she had somewhere else to sleep and it was just him, just him in the little cot-bed, and John did not approve.

He could admit it freely. That he needed her. After all, he'd never tried to pretend that he wasn't the pack type. That he didn't see her as under his protection, as a member of his small, exclusively private existence. He'd never told anyone he didn't consider her _his_, and he _hers_. Not at all.

Except maybe for Kitty herself.

It had only just occurred to him that Kitty might not actually realize the truth of that. He hadn't thought that maybe, she didn't know that she was his pack, his family, his... baby sister. _No. Don't kid yourself, Johnny._ But all that aside, it was only just occurring to him that Kitty might not know how much his oxygen relied upon her presence.

And that scared the hell out of him.

Slinking further down the hall away from the infirmary, John resisted the urge to scowl too darkly at the clean hardwood floor. She should know. She should _know_ he needed her, damn it! She should know that he couldn't sleep properly without her, that he couldn't wake up with that same burst of energy if her hair wasn't tickling the underside of his chin, that... John's mouth twisted and he slammed a hand against the wall. It hurt. He glowered some more.

_You're in love with her, boy_, is what that hand was saying with every throb. _What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Katherine is the sun._ No help, William Shakespeare. No help at all. John shoved his twinging hand into the pocket of his sweatpants, felt a little sick, leaned against the wall a moment. He was still tired, still not eating properly, still paler than usual... but by god, the blue man had said he was on the mend and he was going to find out where Kitty was spending so much of her time.

Part of him knew perfectly well that he was being dangerously possessive, that Kitty had every right to have found some sort of place for herself here. Part of him, even, was glad of it.

A very small part.

But John was not built for understanding or for restraint or for unimportant things like sharing. He couldn't look after her if he wasn't near her, after all, and wasn't that what he'd spent the past three years doing? Wasn't that what he'd finally figured out he was good at? Wasn't that what had, for the first time since – _no, don't think about it, don't think about that_ – a long time, felt _right_? Yes. And so surely it was the right thing for him to want to see her, to know where she was going, to get a feel for the people surrounding her? After all, who did they have but each other, even here? How could they really trust that –

He turned a corner, still moving along the wall, and found himself in a wide, warmly lit room with a plushy carpet and lots of dark wood. A pool table took up a block of space behind an arrangement of couches and chairs, upon which were piled several strangers... all of whom looked up practically as soon as he'd stepped in.

There was a long moment of quiet, and then John stepped away from the wall and everyone seemed to start talking at once. The girls sprawled on two of the couches went back to whatever they'd been saying before his entrance, but the kids who'd been huddled around the pool table dropped their cues and approached. Two boys, two girls... and Kitty.

Kitty went to him immediately, taking his hand and pulling him further into the room. She was smiling, her dark hair up in a loose ponytail, her eyes shining. She looked healthier than she'd looked in ages, he couldn't help but notice. Still, when she tugged him forward, he went grudgingly.

"Guys, this is John. John, this is Bobby," a wave to the blond boy with blue eyes, "Sam," another blond with hair that was longer even than his own, "Jubilee," a punky Asian girl, "and Rogue." This final was a girl with streaks in her hair and a soft smile, who looked more at John's chin than his eyes.

"Hi," he said after a moment, feeling awkward and oddly unwelcome. There was a pause. Then, Bobby stuck out his hand to shake. John took it briefly, then shook hands with Sam and Jubilee. He'd never really understood the custom of shaking hands, but Kitty's grip on his fingers was tight enough that he knew she'd be upset if he didn't follow through. Rogue just gave a small wave with one gloved hand, for which John was grateful.

"Come on," Kitty said after the introductions were finished. "We were just playing some pool."

"You don't know how," John said, immediately regretting it. He felt stupid, and like he needed to hold on to her tighter or she'd just skip away to play _pool_. He followed them over to the table, though, and unconsciously took up a guard stance behind Kitty and to the left. Bobby's eyes, John noted carefully, took this in in a flash before darting back to the pool balls.

"You play, John?" Sam asked, offering a cue. Beside him, Rogue scoffed.

"Even if he's never seen a table before he'll be better than you," she said. Their accents matched, both softly Southern, and John wondered if they knew each other from outside. Then he took the pool cue, and slid in to stand beside Kitty. Across the table, Jubilee and Bobby smiled. Kitty put a hand on his shoulder and leaned up to whisper,

"When did you ever learn to shoot pool?"

"I'm a man of many mysteries," he replied, and bent to the table. He had to rest an arm against the edge, and nearly cursed aloud at his lingering weakness... but John set the cue to his finger, leaning down, fixing his eyes on the cream-colored ball.

"_Don't hit it too hard, Johnny. Make a line from the ball to where you want it to go. Don't look at your hands, boy, look at the ball!"_

He sucked in a breath, steadying his arm, blinking away the echo. _Just ghosts_, John thought to himself, and then took the shot.

The cue ball skidded at an angle, glancing off the orange ball before smacking into the dark red. The orange ball drifted towards the side of the table, but the red ball shot straight against the wall directly in front of it, bounced off, hit the blue and yellow that had been sitting clustered about a foot away from the right corner pocket... and knocked the blue straight into the hole. Kitty jumped and clapped her hands together, pleased, and John straightened with a slight smile. He felt a little shaky, but the satisfaction was totally worth it.

Across the table, Bobby lifted his chin in a short nod.

"My go," he said. "We're not playing double shots."

"Okay," John said agreeably, suddenly very aware of Kitty's arm pressed against his own and of Bobby's sharp blue eyes.

Bobby leaned down, set up his shot, took it fast. The yellow ball went into the opposite corner, the cue ball rolling to a stop mere inches away from the pocket. John's eyes narrowed.

"Close one," he said, unable to keep his mouth closed. Bobby glanced up at him, held his gaze.

"Yeah, I guess I'm lucky," he allowed. There was nothing in his voice but pleasant self-deprecation, but something about the way he met John's eyes made him edgy. He wanted to beat him, John realized then. He wanted to beat this Bobby fellow, in front of Kitty and the others and whoever else happened to walk by.

But it was Jubilee's turn, and he stood back and watched her scrape the green table cover with only a twitching smile in response to the laughter of the others. He felt out of place here, still, and there was something inside him that wanted to grab Kitty and run.

Instead, John waited for his turn to come around again, and sunk two balls with one shot.

He insisted on sitting with the students at dinner. Dr. McCoy sighed and told him what to eat and what not to eat, but he really shouldn't have worried. John had no appetite as he poured himself a tall glass of ice water and pulled out a chair next to Kitty with his foot. Slouching into the chair, John watched Kitty inhale her food and wondered exactly how hungry she'd really been all those years. She'd never once complained.

"So, Johnny," Sam asked at one point, missing John's glare at the nickname. "We're all really curious..." He trailed off, and John didn't fill it for him. "As to, you know, what your..."

"What's your power?" Bobby finished for Sam, resting his elbows on the table across from John and down a few seats. "Is what he wants to know." John glanced at Kitty, who shrugged at him.

"I didn't want to say anything you didn't want said," she explained, and he nodded. Looked back at Bobby, then Sam. The others sharing their table had their eyes on him as well, and John suppressed a frown.

"Fire," he said simply. "I control fire."

"What, like, you can make it stop and stuff?" asked Rogue, leaning her chin in her still-gloved hand.

"And stuff," John agreed. He pulled out his lighter, ignoring Kitty's warning grip on his forearm. "Like this." Flicking the cheap metal ring, John pulled the small flame off the lighter and made it grow, feeding it, feeling the sweat bead across his forehead as he used the energy he probably couldn't really afford to lose to turn the tiny arrow of flame into the foot-tall silhouette of a girl twirling around like a ballet dancer. A few jaws dropped, there were some oohs and ahhs. Kitty smiled at him, the relief in her eyes only evident to someone who knew how to look, and John closed his hand into a fist to extinguish the fire girl.

"That's pretty cool," Sam allowed. "I just cannon-ball things."

"Fireworks," Jubilee said for herself, raising her hand and fluttering her fingers at him with a smile. "We're gonna get along, Sparky." Ordinarily he would have snarled at being called something as inane as that, but the thought of a girl who could make fireworks was intoxicating enough that John didn't really mind.

John looked to Bobby, his fingers still around the lighter. The other boy smiled lightly, and held up a hand. There was a sudden chill in the room, and bluish crystals seemed to rush out of Bobby's actual skin to form a glistening, sculpted skater.

"Ice," he said unnecessarily, setting the sculpture in an empty glass to melt. John felt a funny tightening in his gut, and when he nodded with a crooked smile, he was quite sure there was a bit of sharp tooth in the curve.

Rogue, John noticed, said nothing.

"Well," Kitty said, taking up her glass and downing nearly half of the tea inside, "that was fun." And with that, the conversation turned to a science class that John had little to no interest in, and he went back to watching his own fingers pressed against his water cup.


	6. Chapter 6

**Maybe I'll manage to finish this story, but maybe I won't. No promises. (Although I do love the story.) Anyway, here's another chapter, so that's something, right?**

The library, to his great surprise, was fast becoming John's favorite spot to sit, silent and deceptively absent-minded. He went there because the other students seldom did, save when they were working; those times, they sat alone or clustered, but always quiet and subdued. That suited him. Unless a confrontation turned the air dry and hot and ready, John preferred the quiet, where he could watch and calculate and hold himself apart.

Also, Bobby avoided the big room like the plague.

John raised one leg and slung it over the arm of the soft chair he was currently occupying, the book in his lap open but unread. His eyes, hidden behind an arching cover of too-long hair, scanned the room. A girl with a stack of textbooks. A boy on a laptop. No one else. It was a Saturday afternoon, and the mansion was empty. The older residents, everyone sixteen and above, were either in the city or lounging outside. The younger ones were at a movie with Storm or playing some kind of generic sport involving a ball, the kind of thing John had always been encouraged to take an interest in

"_Go on, Johnny, kick the goddamn ball, all you have to do is kick it, it's not that hard, jesus – "_

but never had.

Kitty was none of those things.

Kitty was out, getting a burger.

Kitty was out getting a burger with Bobby Drake.

John scowled, his fingers itching restlessly at the line of his jeans pocket. Inside that pocket was his lighter, worn plastic whispering to him, worn plastic, warm plastic.

_Maybe when they get back I should throw a little surprise party. A little surprise like… like setting him on fire, his nice new sneakers, his clean innocent fucking face._

And that, of course, was a bad thought. Not okay here. None of it was okay here. There were no gangs, no addicts, no thievesrapistsdrunks. No threats at all. Nothing for him here, nothing to match the way he'd learned to survive.

So why did he feel so anxious? Kitty? No. Yes. Of course. But it was more than that. It was this place, these people, this – this _life_ that was okay for her, wonderful for her, something she'd grown up with and had missed for years and he'd never quite been enough and now she had the friends and the boys and the home, but –

Home.

It was a word he didn't understand, something that had sound, but no meaning. And Kitty was finding it here, in this place, and John couldn't follow her.

John couldn't follow her.

He was shocked to feel angry, helpless tears sting the corners of his eyes, and blinked them furiously away. So that was it, then. Self-awareness was important. You had to know yourself to trust yourself, and if you didn't trust yourself, who could you trust? _Kitty_, John thought. _I can trust Kitty_.

But how could he trust her when he couldn't understand her? That thought was terrifying, incomprehensible. She was going away from him, would be going away from him, he could _feel it_ even when she was right there. How could she avoid it? And this meant they weren't the same, and it meant there was something Kitty had that he couldn't share, and that made John feel like throwing up.

_It's not like you don't have secrets,_ the inner voice reminded him coolly, the waiting-voice, the passenger. _How long before you love her so much it kills you? Or the other one? Or… her?_

He cut that off, something beyond horrified. That was not a thing that could be thought. That was not a thing that could ever be thought.

John realized that his lighter was in his hand, and swallowed. Sometimes he lost things, bits of time, sharp sliced moments that went between an empty hand and one not empty at all. Sometimes he wasn't sure. Sometimes…

He needed to find Kitty. He needed to talk to Kitty. Maybe it wasn't too late. It had only been a few short weeks, after all, a few short weeks of avoiding contact with the other mutants and sleeping curled into a protective ball, hands unconsciously reaching for a girl who wasn't there. Maybe he could still convince her to leave with him, go back to before, to the way it was _before_.

He checked the clock on the wall. An hour. They'd been gone an hour. That was long enough, right? He would go to her room anyway, just in case. He would wait for her there if she wasn't back yet. He wanted to make sure she knew he would wait for her.

* * *

"If you think that was the best burger you've ever had, you have to come to my town sometime," Bobby announced, waving a hand dismissively. Kitty smiled up at him as they walked, her stomach pleasantly full. "There's this one diner next to my high school that'll convert you forever."

"That wouldn't be hard," she admitted, laughing self-consciously. "I'm easy to please."

"Yeah, I guess you wouldn't be picky," Bobby replied good-humoredly, and then his face fell. "Shit. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that." Kitty shrugged, eyes going to the ground.

"It's ok. I know I'm kind of a freak, even here." Bobby stopped walking as they approached the school gates, taking her shoulders lightly in his hands so that she met his eyes.

"Hey. Kitty. You're not a freak." She smiled, lopsided, uncomfortable.

"I was just kidding," she said, hoping he'd drop it. No matter how okay she was at spending time alone with Bobby (and she was pretty okay with it), bringing up the years before she'd arrived at the school triggered a shut-down mechanism that even Kitty herself didn't understand. Somehow, thinking of that time brought a dull, unidentified ache to her stomach, a twisting nervous skittishness that made her – made her want –

"John may not really fit in here," Bobby said firmly, still touching her, "but you do. No one cares where you come from, what you did or didn't do. You have friends here." He hesitated, blue eyes bright with something she couldn't name, something that looked both completely foreign and vaguely, distressingly, familiar. "You could have more than friends here, too," Bobby added carefully, his hands sliding gently to the tops of her arms. Kitty was very aware of his closeness, of the warmth of his palms and the way his thumb was making small, soft circles against her skin. She opened her mouth, then closed it.

She couldn't think of a single thing to say.

In her silence, Bobby leaned in. He moved slowly, slowly enough that she could have stepped away easily if she'd wanted to, but Kitty was so unprepared for it all that she just stood and watched it happen. He kissed her, lips warm and steady and not pushy, not needy. He stayed there for a beat, then pulled away and looked at her with an expression warring between anxiety and excitement.

When Kitty said nothing, and didn't back away, Bobby moved his hands to her waist and pulled her forward slightly. This time, he kissed her without as much hesitation, still not forceful but far more thorough. When he pulled back for the second time, Kitty blinked her way out of the haze and, moving carefully, removed his hands from her waist.

"Was that okay?" he asked, the anxiety back full-force. Kitty swallowed. Her lips tingled.

"Rogue," she managed. "What about Rogue?" Bobby shook his head.

"We're taking a break," he said. "It… wasn't working." Kitty breathed out.

"I… I don't…"

"I'm sorry," Bobby interrupted, earnest. "I just… I like you a lot, Kitty." _This is the part where you tell him you like him too,_ Kitty thought to herself, biting her lip to stall. _This is the part where you say you liked kissing him and you want to do it again, and where you wonder what John would say about it?_ Kitty blinked, surprised by her own subconscious. It was a good question, though.

What, oh, what, would John say?

And she still wasn't answering him.

"I think I need to go back," she said instead, turning abruptly and walking towards the gate. Bobby called after her, brow furrowed, and Kitty paused just before entering to look back at him. "I'll talk to you later, okay?" And with that, she started running for the mansion doors.

It was no surprise that John was sitting against her door, arms folded, one hand lazily playing with his faded reddish lighter. His eyes were closed, legs stretched out to block the corridor. A girl going to one of the bedrooms down the hall frowned down at him, then stepped deliberately over his knees. He didn't flinch. When Kitty approached, though, John's eyes opened as if he'd known all along the instant she'd walk up.

"Hey, Kit-Kat," he said. "Give me a hand?" He held out his hand to her, lighter magically having been vanished away into his pocket. Kitty took it, her fingers wrapping around his slender, calloused palm. A shock of static electricity jumped between them when they touched, and Kitty gave a half-smile as she pulled John to his feet. He pistoned himself upright, landing almost as close to her as Bobby had been. For an instant, Kitty felt the heat radiating off of him, and something in her wanted to step closer still and feel that body pressed up against hers, pressed up against hers in a way it had never been before, wanted it _so badly_ – But that was just a residual effect of Bobby's kiss, she decided, lacing her fingers through John's and leading him into her room.

"I have to talk to you," she began, only to stop with the realization that he'd started with the same thing. She laughed, and John smiled wryly. "You go first."

"No," he insisted, the old gallantry. "Please."

Kitty licked her lips, trying to decide how best to tell him. She could trust him with anything, with everything, but this was new ground for them. "Here, sit down," she said first, and tugged him onto her bed. Flopping down beside him, Kitty lifted her legs onto the mattress and scooted around to lean her back against his. She leaned her head back until it rested comfortably on his shoulder, warm and safe in the crook of his neck.

"You know Bobby?" she asked unnecessarily. She felt John nod. Kitty took a breath. It was probably best to be blunt. John spoke in riddles often, but he hated to be misled. "He kissed me today." He didn't have to say a word. Kitty felt John's back tense like a wild animal, and though he didn't turn around, his breathing stopped. "It's okay, silly," she reassured him. "He didn't hurt me or anything." After a long pause, John spoke. Slowly.

"He was polite? And gentle?"

"Of course."

"What… did you do?" Kitty laughed again, rueful.

"I stood there like an idiot and then I ran away. I said I'd talk to him later. I wanted to tell you, first. When I was standing there right after he kissed me and told me he liked me, I kept thinking of things to say, and then they all just led to you." She turned her head and kissed the underside of her jaw, the closest thing she could reach from this angle. "I can't do anything without you, Johnny." He muttered something, something that sounded suspiciously like, "Oh, yeah?" but it couldn't have been that because that would have been mean. When he spoke again, though, John's voice was noticeably strained.

"You want to know what I think?" Kitty sat up, twisting her torso to look at him.

"Of course I do," she said, surprised. _You are so stupid_, something inside her whispered, something Kitty could barely hear and would certainly not put any stock in.

"I think it's a bad idea. Getting attached."

"Why?"

"Because it'll make it harder to move on," he replied with unexpected sharpness.

"What if we don't move on?"

"We will, Kitty," John said, turning to face her. "We always do." And now there was a new thing in his amber eyes, an almost fearful thing that sent Kitty's heart racing with protective instincts that didn't know what to fight. "And it's okay, because we're together and we don't need anybody else. Remember?"

"I remember," she said slowly, brow furrowing with worry. "Johnny, what's wrong? What did you want to tell me?" There was a long moment where her words hung between them, heavier than she'd known they would be, and for an instant there was a pregnancy in the air that made John's eyes seem alien and made her heart race for a wholly different reason.

"Nothing," he said then, and touched her hair. "Nothing."


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Oh, man, another chapter. Yeah, I'm still cranking them out. Keep your hopes up.**

_He lifted a hand, hesitant, and then swept her hair off the back of her neck in a movement more assured than he'd expected. She sighed, her chin lowering, long neck arching. Behind her, smoothing the soft dark hair over her bare shoulder, he bent and let his mouth hover over her skin for a long, tortuous instant. When his lips brushed against the side of her throat, she leaned back into him, her slim body warm and welcoming. He pressed a kiss against her collarbone, and then she turned in his arms and wound her fingers in his hair._

"_Come on, Johnny," Kitty told him, smiling, her eyes shining and beautiful and open. "I need you." She pulled him down to her, her lips parting as the distance between them closed. "John," she said again, more insistent, her hand tugging lightly at the hair at the nape of his neck._

"Johnny," Kitty repeated, and yanked a little harder at the handful of John's tousled hair. He snorted, eyes snapping open, and bolted upright. Kitty let go of his hair, her smile faltering as he stared at her, eyes wide. John swallowed, wiped a hand across his lower lip and blinked the dream away.

"Oh," he said, forcing a smile. "Didn't mean to fall asleep."

"It's okay," she said, her brown eyes still slightly concerned. "You looked so tired and comfortable, so I just let you sleep… It's only been an hour, though, so you didn't miss dinner." John nodded, getting to his feet. After the failed attempt to talk to her after her – her _date_, he'd escaped back to his own room and, after the first half hour of troubled dozing, had actually gone under. Now, blurry and frustrated, his head pounded.

"I'm going to take a shower," he got out abruptly, and left Kitty sitting on his mattress staring after him.

In the stall, John was grateful that no one else showered at 5PM. He didn't think he could take any interaction right now without picking a fight; he was too distracted (too fucking angry) to keep a good hold on his emotions at the moment. Cold water rushed down over him, slicking his hair back against his skull and into his eyes, and John raised a fist as if to slam it against the tile wall. He stopped himself, instead pressing both forearms up against the wall and leaning his head down between them to catch his breath.

"Fuck," he muttered, tilting his head back and letting the water – now downright freezing – blast him in the face.

There was no denying it now.

He wanted her.

This wasn't being friendly. This wasn't being _brotherly_. This wasn't being protective or kind or just-looking-out-for-Kit-Kat. This was territorial, and it was animal, and it was getting worse.

John gave into the urge and pounded one fist against the wall hard enough to make the fine bones in his hand sting, his heart thudding painfully against his ribs. There was no making that dream go away, no explaining it into nothing. There was no denying the jealous twist that knotted his stomach every time he thought of Kitty and the boy, of his hands all over her. And the truth was…

He didn't _want_ it to go back to before.

_You're in love with her_, the inner voice crowed. _You've claimed her, only you haven't claimed her, and now someone else is trying to, and what are you going to do now?_

"Oh, god," John moaned, hating the voice, hating himself, hating her. It was true. He loved her. He loved Kitty. They'd been tied from the beginning, the connection forged with that first touch of the hand, and now he actually _loved_ her.

She didn't love him back.

She thought of him as a brother, a best friend, her knight in rags and flames. She wanted Bobby, with his _normal_ past and his _normal_ future and his _normal_ goddamn life. She wanted this place, these people, and how long before she didn't need John the rebel, John the street dog, John the pyro? How long before her affection for him, their bond, melted into pity? She still didn't know the worst things, of course; she didn't know where he came from. So there was that. But it was obvious this wasn't the place for him, and he wasn't sure how much longer he himself could keep up pretending it was.

The rage and sorrow washed away into a kind of numb chill, John turned off the water and toweled dry. He pulled on fresh jeans and a new shirt, grudgingly pleased at the constant supply of clean clothes, and made his way to the cafeteria.

Kitty was sitting with Bobby and her other new friends, smiling at something one of them had said. She caught sight of him as he filled his tray, and lifted a hand, waving to him as if he hadn't seen her the moment he stepped into the room. John's eyes always went to Kitty first, no matter what, and for the first time in all their years of being Kitty-and-John he resented her for it.

Still, John sat down beside her and stroked a hand down her back, needing to touch her, to reconnect. He wasn't used to sleeping alone, to not being able to reach out to her at any given moment. Kitty accepted the touch with another smile and tilted her head towards him. She liked being petted, just like her namesake. Sometimes he almost swore she purred.

"We were just talking about you," she said brightly, spooning applesauce up from her plate. John eyed the others, flashy smiling teenagers with their clean haircuts and full trays. Only Rogue looked back, meeting his gaze with cool appraisal. He had to admit, he liked Rogue. She knew something about being… outside.

"Oh?" he asked too late, and Kitty laughed.

"Yeah, spacey. I was telling Bobby and Sam about that time you broke us into the history museum so I could see the new exhibit." John smiled uneasily. Usually she didn't talk about the time before the Institute, not in public. Still, the part of him that was darkly possessive hummed at the chance to reclaim her in this way, bring back their history.

"And the alarm went off when you leaned in too close to the glass," he added dryly. She elbowed him.

"And we had to make a quick exit," Kitty adjusted firmly, over a grin. "That was a good night."

"I'm glad you didn't get caught," Bobby said with a smirk. "Would have confused the hell out of the guards when you slipped through their fingers, literally."

"Well," John replied, grabbing a roll from Kitty's plate in an unconscious staking of territory, "only the best criminals survive as long as us."

"You're not really criminals," Jubilee said, cutting through Bobby's retort. "It's not like you ever hurt anyone." Neither John nor Kitty answered, and there was a long and awkward pause. Then, Jubilee hurriedly continued. "Not like this guy I saw on the news earlier. Did you guys see that?"

"Magneto," Sam agreed in disgust. "His people attacked another lab."

"Magneto?" Kitty echoed, head cocking.

"He's a mutant – "

"He's a terrorist," Jubilee interrupted.

"Right, but he's a mutants-against-humans type," Sam clarified. "One of those radicals who wants to start a war."

"More like the boss of 'those radicals'," Bobby said, shaking his head. "I heard, like, fifteen people got killed in that last bombing."

"What's he attacking?" John asked, interested in spite of himself.

"Genetics labs, mostly," Rogue told them, speaking up for the first time and poking absently at her food. "You know, where humans are working with DNA to try and figure out the X-gene, and maybe how to suppress it." Her voice, while bland, was tinged with something that John thought might have been hope.

"The…"

"The X-gene is what makes us mutants," Bobby said, and was there a hint of condescension in that mild voice? John's nostrils flared, but Kitty quietly put a hand on his forearm and he settled. There it was again, he noted; she could calm him so easily. Like he was a dog after all. Like he was _her _dog. And a year ago, a month, yesterday, that wouldn't have bothered him. But now, after his little revelation, John couldn't help but wonder how much was their bond and how much was his unequal devotion to her. He mentally kicked himself for the thought, but it was there all the same.

"So this guy wants to stop the humans from taking steps against us?" John inquired further, directing the question at Jubilee and Sam across the table, deliberately ignoring Bobby. "That doesn't sound bad to me. I've never met a human worth trusting."

"Well, but he makes his point by blowing people up," Jubilee said, mouth twisting. "We all wish human-mutant relations were better than they are, but Professor X knows better than to start a full-on war. Diplomacy has gotten us this far."

"How far is that," John muttered beneath his breath, and decided it might be best to change the subject. He got the feeling an overt interest in terrorist groups might not be welcome among these kids, and John was more intrigued by this Magneto character than he wanted to make known. "So what's the homework due for Storm?"


	8. Chapter 8

**Hey, guys, I want to keep this story going but you're gonna have to help me out. Let me know what you think, what you want to see, all of that; it's hard to actually sit down and write a chapter without that extra glow of knowing people are looking forward to it!**

It was two in the morning on a Thursday, and Kitty Pryde could not sleep. Not for the life of her. She'd tossed and turned for about an hour before she'd given up, and now just lay on her back with her eyes on the dark ceiling, brooding.

Something was wrong.

She hadn't gotten into any fights, nor had anyone upset her; Bobby was being the perfect gentleman and giving her all the time in the world; her classes, the first ones she'd taken in almost four years, were going well. But her mind wouldn't rest, and she damn well knew why.

Something was wrong with John.

He'd been short with her after dinner again. Not actually rude, nothing that could get her back up for any good reason, but… abrupt. Perfunctory. He'd gotten up, cleared his plate, said something about needing to catch up on reading, and disappeared into his dorm room. They'd both been given singles, due to their history and discomfort around strangers, and that meant there was no way Kitty could go in after him unless he let her without just phasing in, and while ordinarily she'd just do it without a thought, he was obviously on-edge and had shut the door behind him for a reason. She wouldn't lie; it hurt to be closed out, but Kitty had to be honest with herself. John deserved his privacy, too. Even when they'd been on their own, there were times when he would leave her for an hour, two hours, once even a full night. Everybody had demons.

But that didn't mean she wasn't uneasy about it.

He'd been acting strangely for a while now. Ever since they'd come to the Institute, actually, now that she reflected on it; he was not nearly as comfortable with living in someone else's house, surrounded by other people, as she had become. Kitty knew part of it was the authority issue; after all, he'd spent the most important years of his life thus far taking care of himself. But more than that, she suspected it was the people. John was a solitary type, the kind to pick a select group of people and stay with them forever, not the kind to be constantly inundated with talk and laughter and opinions and newness. He didn't like being cooped up indoors so much, and he didn't like having to go to class and sit and listen to someone else's lessons. She hoped that would change with more time.

These past few days, though… it had been different. He hadn't been pushing her away, and wasn't actually doing anything very differently – but there'd been a shift, a change. Very slight. He hadn't been spending as much time with her, hadn't been around at all for hours at a time. He didn't feel as open anymore, and there was a vague sense of the unfamiliar when she thought of him now. The door he'd closed between them in the literal sense was maybe more than literal, and Kitty was more bothered by it than she'd let on. She didn't want to bring it up with him, didn't want to put him on the defensive, especially if she really was just imagining all of this. After all, it wasn't like they'd had a chance to spend a lot of time just talking, so how could she have picked up on a difference?

Kitty sighed. She was distracted, it was true. This whole Bobby thing…

He made her heart race, her stomach fill with butterflies. He'd kissed her twice more now, in the week since their date, both times sweet and almost chaste. The kisses made her lips tingle pleasantly, and the second time she had put her hands in his hair and felt its softness. For some reason, she wanted that hair to be longer, long enough for her to tangle her fingers in it and tug him closer. But it was short, just grown out of a buzz cut, and so she simply rubbed her thumb against his skull and felt the warmth of him. He was nice, and funny, and he made her feel welcome and even at home. She had the idea that Bobby Drake was the boy she would have fallen for if everything had been different, if her parents had never found out or if she were just a plain old human. He was the boy who would have taken her to movies, gotten burgers for the drive-in, gone on trips to amusement parks with her.

But that life was not this one, and she wasn't that girl anymore. Movie theaters made her uncomfortable. They were too dark, too big and full of people she couldn't see. Anyone could sneak up on a girl, and no one would know. That wasn't normal. She had a hard time eating full meals, too. Her body was used to small portions scattered through the day, a diet low on meat and high on things like bread and fruits; she couldn't eat more than one hamburger per week without feeling sick. That wasn't normal, either.

Sometimes it was hard to think about for too long, but at times like these, lying awake and alone in the dark, Kitty couldn't stop herself. If John were there, she would have been able to curl into his side, wrap her arms around him, bury her face in his neck and listen to his heartbeat until her brain gave in and slept. He was excellent for nightmares, creating little fiery knights to fight off her monsters and prancing them around her stomach until she laughed.

He couldn't fight her monsters now. Just like she couldn't fight his. It pained her to admit it, but Kitty couldn't avoid the truth anymore: this place had changed them. It wasn't the two of them against the world anymore, and while she had embraced the chance for a life even close to the one she'd given up, John was still reluctant. It had only been a few months, and already they were farther away than they had been in years.

Part of her wildly blamed Bobby and the others for the change, as if her new friends had forced John out to make room for themselves. Another part of her suspected, on a level deeper than the initial accusation, that this was true. The larger part was annoyed at herself for thinking that, and maintained that it was only natural for her and John's relationship to shift and adapt as their situation did. It didn't mean they weren't family, and it didn't mean anything significant would change. The way they felt about each other hadn't, and wouldn't, change.

_You're lying_, something inside her said, and Kitty felt her gut clench with nerves. _No, _she told herself strictly, _I'm not. Now go to sleep._ And, eventually, she did.

The next morning, Kitty woke up too late for her first class of the day. Irritated, she showered and dressed quickly before wandering down to the library. She wasn't yet hungry for breakfast; one consequence of being used to smaller meals was that, after a real supper, she was full for much longer than her peers. As she passed the cafeteria, though, Kitty's eye caught on something through the panel of glass windows set into the wall. There were two people sitting in the corner of the usually-empty-by-now room, leaning towards each other across their small table. One of them gestured with one hand, and smiled widely. One gloved hand.

Rogue. And John.

They were talking avidly, both looking more animated than Kitty had seen either of them in days. John even laughed, tilting his head in that way that meant he was a mixture of amused and disbelieving. Kitty blinked, and realized that she'd stopped walking. She flushed, relieved that neither of them had looked up and seen her standing in the hallway staring at them like an idiot. She forced herself to look away from the scene and keep going, putting her suddenly-trembling hands in her pockets.

Well, good for them. She'd felt sort of bad for Rogue, what with Bobby being interested in her rather than the untouchable girl, and she was sure John was feeling lonely too, though he'd never admit it. Was that where he'd been all the times she'd gone to his room or the library only to find him gone? She would bring it up with him later and tease him, maybe punch him in the shoulder and make a joke about having to be creative. That was what friends, what _family_, did. Right?

Kitty reached the library and pulled the first book she saw off a shelf. She settled in one of the exceedingly comfortable leather chairs, and prepared to be engrossed in The Baking Industry of 17th Century Europe, 2nd edition. Whether she liked it or not.

* * *

"And then I'd go ice fishing," Rogue finished, slapping her hand down on the table with a rare grin. John wrinkled his nose.

"So not only do you want to be surrounded with snow and _stand on ice_, you want to actually poke a hole in the floor – that could break at any time – and stick your hands in."

"Not my hands," Rogue objected, waving one of those hands dismissively, "a pole. A line! Just because you're obsessed with heat doesn't mean the rest of us have to be." John laughed, shaking his head.

"Fine. Canada. Have fun freezing to death."

"Well, one up me, then," she said challengingly. "Where'd you go, if you could get the hell away from here? Australia? I hear it's real hot there." John's smile faltered.

"No," he said, smoothing his reaction into nothing but a toss of the head. "I'd go to Paris." It was just a word, a city he'd never visited or thought to visit, thrown out for convenience.

"Why Paris?" she asked, leaning her chin on her palm.

"I don't know," John said truthfully, quirking his lips at her. "It's Paris." Rogue rolled her eyes.

"Can't argue with that logic."

"Just goes to show," John replied smugly, "that you shouldn't argue with me at all." Instead of snapping back, Rogue shook her head with a rueful grin.

"Are you kidding? People here barely even disagree with me, let alone take it any further." She sighed. "Don't let it go to your head, Lighter Boy, but I'm glad you're here. I'm sick of people treating me like I'm made of glass." John rocked back in his seat, studying her. He was still surprised by how much he liked being around Rogue, and it was moments like these that made him just a little less uneasy about the friendship.

"Everybody's got problems," he said in a rare moment of spoken insight. "Yours just happen to be more visible. Makes people uncomfortable."

"No kidding," she agreed. There was a pause. "What about you?" she asked him, dark eyes warm. "Show and tell time." John raked a hand through his hair.

"I don't have problems," he said, looking at the table. "I _am_ a problem." She snorted.

"Save the angst, sugar. Look who you're talking to." The corner of his lip went up, and he met her gaze.

"Fair enough." It was his turn to sigh. "I don't know. I can't…" He paused, wary, and then decided it the danger levels were manageable. "I can't _be_ here," John admitted, unconsciously playing with the lighter that had appeared in his left hand. "I don't feel right. I don't belong, and – " He stopped.

"And she does," Rogue finished for him softly.

For a long, silent moment, John looked at her.

"And she does."


End file.
